Went down to the Wembley Stadium Sunday Market this morning. But there was no market. This market is meant to be one of the largest and busiest markets in the whole of London. It’s set in a huge section of car park in front of Wembley Stadium - and has over 500 stalls - with practically every type of goods being traded. So it surprising that the market would have a weekend off - but it did. Despite the stadium construction work - this market has continued in the shadow of the construction every Sunday - with thousands of people making there way from all over to visit it.
But there was no market today - and all there was to tell the hundreds of people like me who turned up that there was no market was a little sign on a fence which said “no market on 12th September - this week only”. Oh well - I’m glad I didn’t have travel from far - as the stadium is only 5 mins from where I live - and we only come here once every few months. I feel sorry for those who came over from further - only to find the market area deserted.
Interestingly - the fact that the place was deserted made the opportunity for pictures of the evolving stadium much easier - as I could get right up close the perimeter fence - with nothing obscuring the view. So I thought I’d provide a photo update on Wembley Stadium progress instead.
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Is that arch like thing part of a roof?
Posted by: Anand on September 12, 2004 05:52 PMAh! Commenting system back to working form. Great! First time commenting after the fix.
Posted by: Anand on September 12, 2004 05:53 PMHi Anand - yes: the arch will eventually hold up the roof structure of the new stadium. And yes: the comments are back and working properly - but only after renaming the cgi-script so that the spam-bots miss it. However, I’m sure it will be a matter of time before I will have to rename it again :-(
Posted by: Jag on September 12, 2004 09:54 PMi’ve been to wembley market once, and got a bag. though the bag broke a few weeks later. ah well, i’m not much a wembley market girl. It has been a good few years since i went, maybe it’s changed, though i doubt.
The picture of the arch is really something, though you can’t really tell from it the scope and size of this thing. It really is something, and apparently it was lit up last week, dont know why.
Posted by: Jaina on September 13, 2004 07:32 PMIt does seem very huge. To look at.
When is it likely to be completed.
And yeah. Since I have started cooking - any of your recipes that don’t required a food-processor? i.e. where I dont have to have grind something?
Posted by: sat on September 14, 2004 07:32 PMJaina - your experience with the bag from the market sounds very much like my own! I bought some “cheap” garden tools from the market a few years back - and they fell apart after a few uses! So now all we seem to get whenever we go there is cheap “catering class” kitchen foil and clingfim!
And yes - the arch is much more spectacular than the picture conveys. They seem to light it up every now and then - apparently it will be lit up evertime there is an event at the stadium when it is finally opened.I think they are testing the lighting in the meantime every so often.
Sat: the stadium should be completed in early 2005 - and it is apparently running ahead of schedule.
Well - most of my recipes involve crushed spices - e.g. crushed garlic, ginger, chillie - but you don’t need a food-processor for those - you can use a knife and bottom of a glass tumbler to do thin slicing and crushing of ginger and garlic anyway. Good luck!
Posted by: Jag on September 14, 2004 09:16 PMTalk about cooking. I need to start doing my own cooking. I was told there is a Sri Lankan shop in Bristol where I can get South Indian provisions. Or the better thing to do is get used to English food. BTW What is English food Jag?
Posted by: Anand on September 15, 2004 03:32 AMHi Anand - I have total empathy for you - only ONE shop in Bristol for South Indian provisions?! Round my place in London there are so many Sri Lankan shops that I’m often spoilt for choice - and that’s not including all the Gujurati-run and Punjabi-run ones too.
And the irony of it is that the contemporary “English” dish is actually Indian! See the following articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/asian_britain.stm
http://www.sonzyskitchen.com/chickentikka.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/07/ncurry07.xml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,475218,00.html
Basically Anand - getting used to “English” food means either getting used to veg and non-veg variants of chicken tikka masala - or else a whole host of other “foreign” dishes that have been anglicised - e.g. so-called “Italian” is very popular over here - pizza, pasta variants etc. and then of course there is the more traditional English dish - which is usually “meat and two veg” - where the meat is either a cooked slab of meat - or in a pastry-covered pie - and the veg is usually boiled carrots or peas or cabbage - and the other veg is always potato in some shape or form - e.g. mashed, baked, boiled, roasted etc.
Seriously though - English food is mostly of foriegn influence - and when you wander around one of the large supermarkets for the first time in Bristol (e.g. Sainsbury, Safeway, Morrisons, Tesco, Asda etc.) you will notice that that there is incredible variety - but I would definitely stock up on your masalas from the Asian stores if I were you (you CAN get them from the supermarkets - but they are more expensive) - and perhaps make a weekly visit to the Sri Lankan shop to get your South Indian fresh goods.
Failing that: I would be happy to send you a regular parcel of goods in the post from London if you really get stuck! :-)
Posted by: Jag on September 15, 2004 09:33 AMThat’s very generous Jag! :) I just hope the store in Bristol is good enough. However, I dont think I am too fussy an eater anyway. I can eat anything vegetarian and edible. :)
Posted by: Anand on September 16, 2004 07:19 PM